A pilot randomized controlled trial of a stress management and resilience training (SMART) programme to student nurses: A mixed-methods design (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Sze Wing Wong
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Stress Management ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Student Nurses ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Clinical Practicum ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Resilience Scale ◽  
Resilience Training ◽  
Group Interviews

BACKGROUND Resilience is an ‘ability which involves behaviours, thoughts and actions which can be learned and developed in anyone’. The principal investigator of this study found that the institute counsellor conducted 65 counselling sessions for the student nurses in the academic year from 2018/2019 to 2020/2021. Forty-five percent of them were related to clinical issues, and some of the student nurses had even quit the programme due to serious mental problems. Such phenomenon can be explained by the fact that this programme was their first exposure to a complex workplace after completing their secondary education; they needed extra support to overcome the adversities and adapt to the clinical environment. Currently, in the first clinical practicum, student nurses are normally supervised and supported in groups by their schoolteachers and groupmates every minute. In the subsequent clinical practicums, they need to work independently in the ward and are supervised by the ward nurses when necessary. The schoolteachers are their resource persons, and the former visits the latter approximately once bi-weekly. Therefore, this study aims to implement a pilot study on introducing a structured and scientifically proven method, namely, Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART), to the student nurses before their second clinical practicum, evaluate its effectiveness and explore students’ experience in using it. OBJECTIVE • To employ a structured and evidence-based programme, namely, Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART), to student nurses before their clinical practicum which aims to boost their resilience. • To evaluate the effectiveness of SMART by measuring the changes in nursing students’ resilience and stress levels at three time points by using two self-report questionnaires. They are Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10 (CD-RISC-10) and Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10). • To explore students’ experience in using SMART during their clinical practicum by conducting two semi-structured focus group interviews. METHODS This research is a mixed-method study using a pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) and focus group interviews. The RCT will be conducted in accordance with the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement. A total of 100 student nurses will be randomly assigned into control and test groups. A group of experienced professionals will employ Sood’s framework to devise a nursing-based and 8-week SMART programme and will intervene it to 50 student nurses in the intervention group. No intervention will be implemented to the 50 student nurses in the control group. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10 and Perceived Stress Scale-10 will be used to measure students’ resilience and stress levels at three different time points. After the student completed the second clinical practicum, semi-structured focus group interviews will be conducted to collect students’ experience of using SMART. The demographic data will be summarised by descriptive statistics of frequency count, mean and standard deviation. Chi-squared test and Fisher's exact test will be applied to analyse the differences between demographic variables. Given that the outcome measures of both assessment tools are continuous data, dependent t-test will be used to compare the means between time points. Multilevel modelling analysis will be used to investigate the changes in the outcome measures on each time interval with respect to its baseline and assess the effectiveness of the intervention. A two-level model can be built with repeated time points at level 1 and participants at level 2. The significantly different demographic variables between groups and other possible confounders will be adjusted by including them in the main effect model. A pairwise comparison and other hypotheses on the intervention effects can be tested using a generalised Wald test with an adequate degree of freedom from the modelling analysis. RESULTS The recruitment for this study will begin in March 2022 and the results are expected to be ready by February 2023. CONCLUSIONS This protocol outlines a pilot study on introducing a SMART programme to the student nurses and the methods of evaluating its impact. CLINICALTRIAL Nil

A pilot study of Vipassana meditation with female drug users at a rehabilitation centre, Thailand

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 132-141
Author(s):  
Nualnong Wongtongkam ◽  
Phrakhru Bhavanaveeranusith
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Rehabilitation Centre ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Premature Deaths ◽  
Vipassana Meditation ◽  
Group Interviews

Purpose Substance abuse has become a major health issue in Thailand, contributing to high numbers of premature deaths and requiring considerable expenditure on treatment and rehabilitation programs. The purpose of this paper is to explore use of Vipassana meditation to reduce depression and improve empathy and self-awareness in drug dependent women at a rehabilitation centre. Design/methodology/approach Mixed methods were employed. Data were collected in a randomised controlled trial and focus group interviews with 24 intervention subjects and 22 controls. Findings Findings showed no significant differences in depression, empathy or mindfulness levels between intervention and control groups, but intervention subjects had a small decline in depression at one-month follow up. The focus group interviews showed that drug users had developed self-awareness, moral values and greater understanding of right and wrong acts. Originality/value Findings suggest that Vipassana meditation which is cultural appropriate for Thai culture and religion, should be incorporated into treatments in rehabilitation centres to increase successful outcomes.

Management Strategy for Distributing Questionnaires and Interview Guidelines in the Research Data Collection Process

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Po. Abas Sunarya ◽  
George Iwan Marantika ◽  
Adam Faturahman
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Management Strategy ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Good Management ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Data Collection Process ◽  
Group Interviews

Writing can mean lowering or describing graphic symbols that describe a languageunderstood by someone. For a researcher, management of research preparation is a veryimportant step because this step greatly determines the success or failure of all researchactivities. Before a person starts with research activities, he must make a written plan commonlyreferred to as the management of research data collection. In the process of collecting researchdata, of course we can do the management of questionnaires as well as the preparation ofinterview guidelines to disseminate and obtain accurate information. With the arrangement ofplanning and conducting interviews: the ethics of conducting interviews, the advantages anddisadvantages of interviews, the formulation of interview questions, the schedule of interviews,group and focus group interviews, interviews using recording devices, and interview bias.making a questionnaire must be designed with very good management by giving to theinformation needed, in accordance with the problem and all that does not cause problems at thestage of analysis and interpretation.

scholarly journals Counter-talk as symbolic boundary drawing: Challenging legitimate cultural practices in individual and focus group interviews in the lower regions of social space

2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110144
Author(s):  
Riie Heikkilä ◽  
Anu Katainen
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Moral Boundaries ◽  
Popular Classes ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Symbolic Boundary

In qualitative interviews, challenges such as deviations from the topic, interruptions, silences or counter-questions are inevitable. It is debatable whether the researcher should try to alleviate them or consider them as important indicators of power relations. In this methodological article, we adopt the latter view and examine the episodes of counter-talk that emerge in qualitative interviews on cultural practices among underprivileged popular classes by drawing on 49 individual and focus group interviews conducted in the highly egalitarian context of Finland. Our main aim is to demonstrate how counter-talk emerging in interview situations could be fruitfully analysed as moral boundary drawing. We identify three types of counter-talk: resisting the situation, resisting the topic, and resisting the interviewer. While the first type unites many of the typical challenges inherent to qualitative interviewing in general (silences, deviations from the topic and so forth), the second one shows that explicit taste distinctions are an important feature of counter-talk, yet the interviewees mostly discuss them as something belonging to the personal sphere. Finally, the third type reveals how the strongest counter-talk and clearest moral boundary stemmed from the interviewees’ attitudes towards the interviewer herself. We argue that counter-talk in general should be given more importance as a key element of the qualitative interview. We demonstrate that all three types of counter-talk are crucial to properly understanding the power relations and moral boundaries present in qualitative interviews and that cultural practices are a particularly good topic to tease them out.

scholarly journals We Want More Than Life-Sustaining Treatment during End-of-Life Care: Focus-Group Interviews

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 4415
Author(s):  
Mirinae Kim ◽  
Minju Kim
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
End Of Life Care ◽  
Life Care ◽  
Treatment Needs ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Basic Care ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
Group Interviews

We qualitatively investigated end-of-life care needs. Data were collected via focus-group interviews with three groups: young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. The key question was, “What kind of care would you like to receive at the end of life?” Interview data were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. End-of-life care needs were classified into six categories: life-sustaining treatment needs, physical care needs, emotional care needs, environmental needs, needs for respect, and needs for preparation for death. Because the Korean culture is family-oriented and talking about death is taboo, Korean patients at the end of their life do not make decisions about life-sustaining treatment or actively prepare for death. Therefore, to provide proper end-of-life care, conversations and shared decision-making among patients and their families are crucial. Further, we must respect patients’ dignity and help them achieve a good death by understanding patients’ basic care preferences. Future research should continue examining end-of-life care needs that reflect the social and cultural context of Korea to inform instrument development.

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